Scarcity vs. Abundance in Fundraising: How Your Nervous System Impacts Donor Giving

Why the “Come-From” Energy of Fundraising Shapes Donor Relationships, Confidence, and Results

Fundraising isn’t just about strategy — it’s about the state you’re in when you ask.

In this episode, Erin explores how scarcity and abundance live in the body, not just the mind, and why your nervous system plays a bigger role in donor relationships than most nonprofit training ever acknowledges.

You’ll hear how early experiences with “no” can quietly wire scarcity patterns that follow us into adulthood… and into fundraising. Erin also shares a real-world example from her own career, where an organizational culture of fear and over-politeness led to fewer donor connections, less risk-taking, and missed opportunities.

Most importantly, this episode offers practical, immediately usable tools to help you regulate your nervous system before donor conversations — so you can show up calm, confident, and connected, regardless of the outcome of the ask.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What “come-from energy” means in fundraising — and why donors feel it
• How scarcity patterns form early and quietly shape fundraising behavior
• Why anxious or over-careful fundraising cultures push donors away
• The role of the nervous system in donor conversations and decision-making
• A simple 30-day scarcity-pattern journaling practice
• How to soften the body before an ask to access a sense of abundance
• Why your worth is never tied to the dollars you raise

Resources & Practices Mentioned:

• Scarcity patterning journal (60 seconds a night for 30 days)
• Pre-donor-meeting nervous system regulation (breath + body awareness)
• Abundance awareness practice using the natural environment

💬 Join the conversation
You’re invited to share your experience and reflections inside the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser Facebook group — a supportive space for fundraisers who want to do this work without judgment and with a lot of heart.

Book your 1:1 Brave and Balanced Breakthrough Coaching Session here: https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough

✨ Stay Connected & Continue Your Fundraising Growth

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Join the community:
The Brave & Balanced Fundraiser Facebook Group
👉 https://www.facebook.com/groups/braveandbalancedfundraiser

Book a Brave & Balanced Breakthrough Call:
A personalized 1:1 session to support your inner clarity and fundraising wellbeing.
👉 https://calendly.com/vitalistcoaching/brave-balanced-breakthrough

Learn more about Erin’s coaching & nervous-system based support:
VitalistCoaching.com

Connect on Instagram:
@erinmcquadewright

Transcript

Erin McQuade-Wright 1:33

Welcome to the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the podcast I wish I'd had during my 15 years as a professional fundraiser. I'm your host, Erin McQuade Wright. This is your space to breathe, realign, and reconnect with a part of you that chose this work for a reason. Together we'll explore tools and practices that help you show up less stressed and spread thin and more grounded, brave, and on purpose. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. Today we're talking about something that rarely gets named in nonprofit fundraising, but it quietly shapes everything. Your come from energy. Are you approaching donor conversations from scarcity or from abundance? Even when we have all the right words, strategies and materials in place? Our nervous system is broadcasting what's happening under the surface. And if we're anxious, frantic, or trying to prove our worth, the people across from us can feel it often without knowing why. In this episode, we'll explore how scarcity patterns form, how they show up in fundraising culture and donor relationships, and most importantly, what you can do today to shift into a calmer, more grounded and more effective way of asking. So let's get into it. Today we're exploring the come from energy of fundraising, the come from. What is your come from when you fundraise? Are you coming from scarcity or abundance? And this matters because even when we've got it all together on the outside, our nervous system is broadcasting what's happening on the inside if we're in an inner state of anxiety or dysregulation, those around us can feel it on a subconscious level. And if you're talking to a potential donor, you lower the odds that they will give when your energy is frantic or needy. So if you've ever said to yourself, this is not a dangerous situation. It's a friendly conversation about their annual gift or their pledge to our endowment; why is my heart beating so fast and I'm sweating? This episode is really gonna help you and it's gonna give you solutions that you can try out immediately. Here's a question. When is the first time you remember feeling scarcity? Maybe you asked your parent for money and got a no, or maybe you wanted that cereal with a really fun box, but the boring box made it into the cart instead. Wwo being told no, isn't fun, but it's an important part of life to learn what to do with a no. So did you take those early nos to mean something about you? Like, if I was better behaved, they would say yes. The way, that's normal Uh, kids don't have much control over their lives, so they work to make sense out of confusing situations, and sometimes that means they connect their self-worth with their performance. But fast forward to today and you still may be performing your tushy off to get your needs met or appeasing those around you to keep things friendly in your environment. So therefore you will feel okay. And when you've got a scarcity pattern like that running in the background of your awareness, that pattern is actually running you and it's preventing you from doing your best fundraising. When I was a professional fundraiser, I once observed a pattern that showed up across the culture of the organization I worked for, and it went like this: we love our donors so much. We respect our donors time so much. We respect our donors privacy so much that we only reach out to them once a year to ask for a gift, and even then we feel like we're bothering them. So let me ask you, how would you feel if you were a donor in this scenario? Would you feel valued like your contribution matters, or would you feel like, you know, they don't really need me here. I'd rather give elsewhere. In the case of this story, there was an unspoken scarcity belief at play that sounded like: asking for money is always an annoyance to the person asked to give, so it's better not to ask or ask as little as possible. And this belief showed up when it came to hosting events cultivating donors for future gifts. It even made the annual fundraising appeal letter really stiff and formal. But here's the truth. An organizational culture like the one I'm describing is based on a belief: it's not safe to mess up or said another way. Safety is scarce here in that organizational culture, making a mistake carries heavy consequences. So people hedge their bets and they don't take as many risks. They pull inward and withdraw from donor interactions and maybe even staff interactions, or they feel stilted if they're at the table, afraid to say the wrong thing to the donor, afraid to say the wrong thing in front of their, their boss. It's just rigid and it sort of pulls inward. And when we're in this state, it leaves our nervous system to flood the body with stress hormones so it can be ready to fight or flee. And meanwhile, where's the donor in all this? Well, they're probably forgotten and left behind and looking for an organization where they can really feel the value of their contribution, and like that's a warm place that is enveloping them with an open heart. So how can we shift this dynamic? Well, There's a really important point here that deserves a lot of emphasis. We can only shift our own dynamic, not the whole culture. And that's actually really good news because have you ever tried to change the culture of an organization? I unfortunately have. Back when I didn't know any better, and it's just like Peter Drucker famously said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. So the culture wins, no matter how good the strategy is that you're trying to implement. So we can't change the culture, but we do have the power over how we show up. And in the scenarios that I painted in this episode, I was not blameless. I participated in that culture, I merged with that culture and I felt unsafe. To take a big risk or take a chance, and I found that my risk level went way down. My actions went down, my interactions with donors went down. This is how I know, uh, to offer you this story because I've experienced it personally and I've contributed to it. So we have the power over how we show up. And if we take a closer look at that pattern of scarcity, that's a great place to start. And one practice that I recommend is a scarcity patterning journal. You can keep a notebook or a few pieces of paper by your bedside for 30 days and each night before going to sleep, you can write for 60 seconds about how and when scarcity showed up in your words or actions that day. When we see the pattern, it stops running us from the background and we can choose to show up more intentionally. You can start to notice what does my body feel like when I'm in scarcity mode? Is it a clenched jaw or belly, a tightness in the chest? What are the signals your body is sending? It's just feedback for you to have, and you get to choose whether this is how you wanna feel or not. And if you want more abundance, you can start with the body. Before you enter a donor conversation, take a few deep breaths and go with your internal awareness to those places: The jaw, the brow, the belly, the chest, and you can intentionally on exhale, soften them. That is within your control. And from that place where you've got a soft belly. A soft brow that's no longer furrowed and a relaxed jaw. I want you to think of the ways that abundance is already here in your awareness. Maybe it's in the form of, or depending on your climate, maybe it's in the form of clouds or rain, an abundance of birds or plants. Or an abundance of rocks or even grains of sand. Simply noticing the abundance that's already here causes it to grow in your awareness and more abundance will come and reveal itself to you from there. So what I really wanna leave you with from this conversation is this, your worthiness is not tied to the dollars you're raising or haven't yet raised. Your worthiness is inherent. You're a human on this planet, so boom, you're worthy. Full stop. And when you start to disconnect your worthiness from your results in fundraising, you shift from trying to do all the things to doing what's actually gonna move the needle for you. I hope this has been helpful to you, and I'd love to know how you did with this practice. So come and join us in the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser Facebook group and share your experience there. And it's a place where we really are there to support each other in this work without judgment and, With an abundance of open-heartedness and love. I hope to see you soon.

12:23

Before we wrap up, here are a few things I want you to take from today's episode. Number one, your donors don't just hear your words. They feel your nervous system. Number two, scarcity isn't a personal failing. It's a learned pattern that can be interrupted. Number three, you can't change your organization's culture, but you can change how you show up inside of it. Number four, regulating your body before an ask increases clarity, creativity, and connection. Number five, your worth is inherent. It has nothing to do with how much you raised or didn't. If this episode resonated, I'd love to hear how these practices land for you. You can send me a DM on Instagram at Erin McQuaid Wright, or come join us in the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser Facebook group where we support each other in doing this work with courage, compassion, and abundance. Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time.